"Is it always a valid excuse for a game to be poor? Well it just may depend on how you the game is labeled. Like and subscribe for more content on early access games!
In this video I go over a very large issue that has to do with early access games. Basically, a large majority feel that these games do not deserve any criticism. You can't complain about something that's not done. The fact is, depending on how the game is labeled (alpha or beta) there are certain objections you can make. "
We have talked about problem Early Access games before and this video seems to add to that conversation. Do you think that certain people let certain elements slide because the game is early access?
In this video I go over a very large issue that has to do with early access games. Basically, a large majority feel that these games do not deserve any criticism. You can't complain about something that's not done. The fact is, depending on how the game is labeled (alpha or beta) there are certain objections you can make. "
We have talked about problem Early Access games before and this video seems to add to that conversation. Do you think that certain people let certain elements slide because the game is early access?
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
Sign Up / Log In
This is a great breakdown of the development process for us laypeople. I've always thought of Alpha releases as a combination of the Integration and System Testings, so that's what' I've expected. I generally don't buy games at the Alpha stage, as I'm not very interested in playing partial games, so I'm not familiar with how developers introduce Alpha stages to players, but communication sounds like it's the main issue that is causing problems. Consumers of Alpha builds need to better understand what exactly to expect from a game when they're playing it. Just because something is labelled as "alpha," it shouldn't be assumed what that exactly means for the specific game. If I were a developer, I think I would take the time to inform customers as to exactly what is currently in the build, what is being worked on, and what is coming in the future. And I would avoid the phrase "It's not done yet."
But perhaps developers are doing that and customers just aren't informing themselves.
It's a catch 22. Starbound shows this quite a bit. People expect constant updates even when they're working on back end stuff, so Chucklefish started doing purely optional nightly builds to show off what's going on with the dev process. To clarify, you have to intentionally go download these, they aren't included in Steam updates.
They included the caveat that things will definitely be horribly broken in these, since they're snapshotting it every night regardless of the condition it's in, and yet people are still complaining at how every nightly update seems to break something.
I think finishing the complete game with all features complete tomorrow is the only way people will stop complaining, but then they'd find something else to complain about :)
Travis, thanks for that Starbound update! I've apparently been out of the loop.
Adam: I agree, the difference between Alpha and Beta is HUGE and i'd rather catch something in the final throws of development than an early Alpha.
Travis: I could say a bunch about Starbound, but the main point is that they said the game was Beta when it was clearly in the "We are going to change huge aspects of the game, including progressing, leveling and just about everything." Had the devs said Alpha OR tech demo or whatever then I think things would be a bit better. That said, I don't really think people are wrong in what they are upset about, I just don't choose to rage about it.
Sure, I agree that this shouldn't be called beta yet, but complaining about nightly builds breaking things is ludicrous. Nightly builds on software that's far past release are going to have major showstopper bugs, so alpha/beta should be expected to be far worse.
Yup. I agree.